EXCLUSIVE: Hospital patients on suicide watch are being left unattended. Read this email sent today to the permanent secretary at the Health Ministry by the nurses union president
From: Paul Pace [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 08 January 2014 00:25
To: ‘Rapa Joseph at MFH-Permanent Secretary’
Cc: ‘mumn’
Subject: Last update on the indemnity insurance
08th January 2014
Mr.Rapa
Per. Sec
Dear Mr. Rapa,
LAST UPDATE ON THE INDEMNITY INSURANCE
NEXT UPDATE WILL BE DIRECTIVES – 14TH JANUARY 2014
No rePly has been forwarded regarding the indemnity insurance. MUMN fully expects that all liability in any civil suits have to be carried by the Health Division. The Health Division should be aware that the nurses are being FORCED to work against all principles of health and safety due to numerous factors and are making the nursing workforce vulnerable to suing.
Such factors which are common practises making nurses liable are:
1) All suicidal constant watches ordered by the doctor are being left unattended due to lack of nurses in MDH, SVPR, MCH. Therefore treatment prescribed by doctors is not being delivered. This is illegal. Such patients legally are entitled specifically to have an nurse and not a carer which is what is being used in some cases. Carer are under qualified, not warranted and not trained. Carers are not liable but nurses are. The blame will be shifted on the ward nurses and their management (nursing officer and DNM). In some cases not even a carer is being send. If such a patient manages to commit suicidal a magistrate will be called in and nurses, nursing officers, and DNM will lose their job and their homes. MUMN will be once again informing the attorney General on this issue.
2) All wards in MDH, MCH and KGH and sometimes even SVPR, are left below the nursing compliment by the hospital division which would eventually lead to human errors and lose of life to the patients. Lack of compliment is a good catalyst to human errors which in terms of law signifies negligence. Negligence when proven in a court of law means GUILTY. Nurses and management in every hospital are at high risk of being sued and any magistrate will not accept the concept of just “lack of nurses” to be a good reason for the death of a patient. Nurses and their nursing officer and their DNM will pay a dear price if they are sued.
3) The Health Division has now adopted a system of discharging patients from theatre and operating patients without a bed. All this is illegal from a patient safety point of view. MUMN had issued a directive on this issue and those nurses who are not adhering to this directive are on their own if a patient decides to sue. This discharge from theatre was organised by the management at the expense of the nurses. Once again if things would go wrong and eventually things would go wrong, a nurse in theatre or a nurse of the Day Care Unit with the respective management will lose his/her job and their home. A magistrate will never take into consideration that there was no beds in the hospital and therefore the patient deserve to die. A culprit which will be a nurse and not a doctor will eventually be found.
4) Risks are being taken by allowing nurses and midwives working in wards with heavily depleted numbers. It would be sometimes better not to operate at all when wards are being left with a two or three nurses when actually the number is to be six nurses on a ward. Yet no one dares to stop operations but one day a particular ward would be the first to be sued on negligence and the Health Division would blame it on nurses and their management (nursing officer and DNM) and not on the system.
5) No Health Division’s lawyer is in any position to guarantee that nurses and their management will not suffer any consequences if found guilty in court. Any lawyer who gives such grantee to you as nurses, should be given in writing, signed in front of a notary (as to make it official) so that such lawyer will be exposed in any court of law. Invite MUMN officials when such a lawyer is ready for this charade.
6) Opening areas (area two) in the E/A department without adding the required nursing staff…putting nurses in the E/A under pressure and MUMN had to issue directives since no one bothered to consider consequences on such nurse.
MUMN will be soon organising a meeting to all nurses, deputy nursing officer and nursing officers and DNM starting from MDH on the risks all MUMN members are taking just because the Health Division is not adopting a service according to the nursing compliment of the hospital. Nurses and their management are in a time bomb situation and MUMN is expecting that the way the system is working, “negligence” (word used in terms of lawyers) will eventually happen. On the 14th January 2014, if there is no reply that all types of negligence (excluding wilfully) is not covered by the health division, MUMN will be issuing directives.
Nurses please be aware that even if the indemnity insurance is paid by the Health Division, there are still other consequences to the nurses and their management. The nurse and the management could still be suspended, losing thousands of euro in allowances and still have to pay the expenses of the lawyer if taken up to court and found guilty. So there is a whole uncharted picture which most of you are not aware of. This will be explained in the meeting on the risks nurses and their management are taking.
MUMN is stating in this letter that NO nurse and NO management in any hospital will be held responsible when constant watches due to suicidal cases an extra nurse will not be provided.
The first nurse, nursing officer or DNM to lose his/her job on such any of these aspects, MUMN will order strikes since we are PLAYING WITH PATIENTS LIFE and NURSES JOBS AND THEIR HOMES…….AND FOR THE HEALTH DIVISION ONLY NUMBERS COUNT AND NOT QUALITY OF SERVICE. Quality of service to our patients has become irrelevant.
Nurses, deputies, nursing officers and DNM and MNS…read this letter and start thinking for your own god and safety since no one is thinking on your own good and safety but MUMN….and be prepared if directives are issued on the 14th January 2014.
Paul Pace
MUMN President
24 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Shit will someday hit the fan
The problem is that if shit did hit the fan, there is very little in place to even notice.
If you’re familiar with the environment at Mater Dei Hospital, you’d see there isn’t any regular audit work done and the little that is done is often shoddy.
Without this key element of clinical governance, you can see what’s going wrong and you can’t see what impact changes you’ve made have had.
Sadly, even when clinical audit shows a shortcoming, little is done to address it.
Only John Dalli BA can sort this out for the Government.
Suicides – Labour’s way of reducing waiting lists.
But when you then report the suicides, you’re being insensitive.
They will be soon handing out Brompton cocktails to the terminally ill.
Is this the result of the Dalli report? Was this why Gonzi got rid of him in the first place? This stinks of tight management system.
Paul Pace should also declare how mistaken he was leading the Labour-managed FORUM, who did their share to remove Gonzi by throwing as much shit as possible.
Now he is getting what he deserves and should have ashes on his head until the next election.
One can’t fail to realise that the way persons with mental health issues, whether at MDH or Mount Carmel hospital or elsewhere, are cared for, shows that the government does not care two hoots about their welfare.
Mental health has become a sadistically managed phenomenon in the past few months, whether it was a cook discussing HR, mass transfers or very bad management to the detriment of the patients being open to abuse.
I bet the PL would say ‘mhux xorta, dawk mohhom mhux sew’ or ‘hafna minnhom mghandomx vot jew mhux kapaci jivvutaw’.
This is disgustingly Taghna Lkoll indeed.
Shocking … but this person should at least have proofread his message before sending it. And if strikes are going to be ordered because the Department of Health is playing with people’s lives, then they should not be ordered after the first nurse is convicted but before the first patient dies.
That is what to expect when health care is placed in the hands of accountants.
Tragic situation. Unfortunately, the many grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and overall poor writing quality of this communication detract from its important message. Surely, the union can get someone with better English writing skills to review such documents before issuing them.
Paul Pace, if he has any sense, will be saying now ‘kemm konna ahjar meta konna aghar.’
@ Il-Kajboj:
John Dalli did indeed hit some nails on their respective head. I must acknowledge that those particular nails are quite painful. Same nails are now possibly more painful.
Your late colleague, John Wayne, could/would also not have solved the health services status quo in Malta.
Individuals, who have experience in health services administration combined with professional medical training, and who might be aware of the unique mentality, which providers, trade unions and patients in Malta respectively exhibit, may quickly realise that in Malta, unfortunately, no solution is possible.
All political parties share the same problem. The difference is to be found in the way, in which the political parties cheat on their supporters and voters.
I wonder whether they understand what Mr.Pace wrote.
If this is as far a Labour could go then they are the most DEPLORABLE, INHUMAN, HEARTLESS, IRRESPONSIBLE lot any vote can produce. May this serve as an eye opener to those who cast their votes irresponsibly under the pretext of LET`s TRY, GIVE THEM A CHANCE, to elect such an irresponsible government which publicly declared that IT IS STILL LEARNING. This is criminal irresponsbility, negligence, non observance of regulations. This is what Franco Debono should be talking about, the criminal responsibility of his favourite pet, Joseph`s Labour.
Sink national entities, then privatise them. It’s an old strategy worthy of the British Conservatives.
The only solution is to confer urgently the MD degree to John Dalli, send all the doctors and nurses on long vacations and leave Dr Dalli alone at the hospital.
Problem solved in one day, for sure.
I’m afraid I had to stop reading half way. The innumerable errors were too much to bear.
Mmm makes my heart bleed.
Wasn’t Paul Pace the man who issued a directive (one of a zillion) to nurses at Boffa Hospital to boycott a patient terminally ill with cancer?
Didnt seem bothered by patient safety then.
And finally that exhortation to nurses to think “for your own god”….presumably he means himself.
It seems that competence in English is not a requirement for the nursing diploma/degree.
I think English is beyond the point here, what is more worrying is the content.
This is exceptionally concerning, I cannot imagine the pain their loved ones are in.
MUMN publishes a nursing journal, Il- Musbieh. Some articles are in English.
I brought it to the attention of the committee to at least ask someone to proof-read and check the grammatical mistakes before printing.
It is better to write in Maltese if one cannot express himself well in English.
Paul Pace, please take note. Sometimes you are the laughing stock of the Nurses’ Union.